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Hi everyone,

 

First off, I just want to say hello to the community here at Blue Oval Forums. I've been lurking on these forums since last year when we bought my wife's white 2013 Fusion SE. This site has been a great source of information for our research both before and after that purchase, so thank you for that. We like her car so much that I decided to buy one for myself too, a black 2013 Titanium model. So now we have the complete "bride and groom" set. :)

 

The only thing that really turned me off about the Fusion is the lack of an option for HID headlights, a complaint that I have heard echoed by many others as well. My last vehicle had them (a Nissan Altima coupe), and once you've had steak, it's hard to go back to hamburger. I looked into doing a full retrofit, but ultimately the lower cost and good compatibility of a plug-and-play kit with the Fusion won me over. I decided to buy one kit for now, install it myself, and if we liked it, do the same on our other vehicle.

 

After lots of research into product quality, warranty offerings, and customer service ratings, I decided to go with the Morimoto Elite HID system from The Retrofit Source. I went with the 35W H11B bulbs @ 4500K, along with standalone canbus harnesses. I convinced my wife to do the HID upgrade on her vehicle first, just in case I screwed something up so that she could be the first to experience the joy of upgraded lighting! ;)

 

Let me first say that my experience with The Retrofit Source has been stellar. They answered all of my questions before the purchase, they encourage you to reach out to them if you have any trouble during the installation, and they quickly resolved a parts issue that came "to light" (sorry, bad pun intended) after the install.

 

I just want to mention it up front so that it doesn't get lost in my install guide - the issue that we had was that one of the lights would shut off after about thirty seconds and not come back on until the lights were turned off and back on. Occasionally it would completely fail to fire up at all. I shuffled parts from one side to the other until I identified the canbus as the culprit. I sent a quick email to TRS with a photo of the canbus hacked into pieces (that was fun!), and they got a replacement one to me within a few days at no cost to me. The kit has worked flawlessly ever since.

 

So, if you buy and install this kit and experience the same symptoms, take a look at the canbus first. And rest assured that if anything goes wrong within five years of purchase for the 35W kit, they'll ship out a replacement part to you right away. In my opinion that peace of mind along with the as-advertised bulb temperature colors makes up for the slightly higher cost vs. the cheap eBay kits or other options out there. Now, on to the install guide...

 

---

 

Here is a photo of the kit that I received (cable ties and box cutter not included):

wVDAbH5.jpg

 

The quality of the kit is really top-notch. Each component is solidly constructed, individually packaged, and assembly instructions are included. Here's a color-coded parts list:

  • Green - XB35 ballasts
  • Red - H11B XB 4500K bulbs
  • Yellow - ballast igniters
  • Blue - Wiring for connecting bulb to canbus and ballast
  • White - Standalone canbus
  • Orange - Alcohol wipes

Now let's get to work!

  1. Park your car in a cool, shaded location (preferably in a garage). Tip: If you can't be indoors, a pedestal fan is your best friend!
  2. Make sure that your parking brake is set, and put wheel chocks in place. Safety first... it won't do you much good to have nice headlights if your car brings your life to an end before you even get to drive it.
  3. First we'll need to remove the front bumper to get access to the headlights. Pop your hood and remove the parts shown below:
    kZKX9lq.jpg
    * Green - Trim clips
    * Red - Torx screws
  4. From this point on we will work on modifying one headlight at a time. First you'll want to remove three thumbscrews from the back of the front wheel well on the side that you want to work on. This photo is from the front right wheel well. The screws are circled in red:
    qMkDkeZ.jpg
    If you are having trouble accessing the screws, it may help to turn the adjacent wheel toward the inside of the car. Just be sure to turn it back and replace the wheel chock when you're done.
  5. Next you'll need to slide under the front of the car, so make sure that parking brake is on! This time you'll need to remove a bolt at the front of the bumper and two thumbscrews along the side, shown below in red:
    35alUDM.jpg

    My wife's car had apparently been worked on in the past, so one of her two thumbscrews was a trim clip; yours will probably look a bit different. Here is a close-up of the same two screws along the side of the bumper from the last photo, since they were out of focus:
    y7SKUyk.jpg
  6. Great news, now you're ready to pry that side of the bumper away from the car! The rest of my photos came out a lot better from the front LEFT side of the car, so pretend that we've finished up on the right side of the car and moved on to the left. Now that the bumper is free, we can carefully pull it away from the body, starting from the seam by the wheel well and working our way toward the front:
    24G9OTJ.jpg
  7. Now that the bumper is out of the way, we want to remove the bolts that are holding the headlight in place, shown here:
    rFT8Y2i.jpg
  8. The headlight is still held in place by a locking tab, so next you'll need to give it a nice, firm pull toward the front of the vehicle to get it loose. In theory you should be able to completely remove it from the car, but I just let it slide forward several inches, set it down, and stuffed some padding between the bumper and the rest of the body, to protect the paint:
    zejNeBs.jpg
  9. Now we can get to work on installing our kit! The next step is to remove the protective cap that sits behind the low beam bulb. It's the one on the outside part of the headlight, as shown here:
    qa28inx.jpg
  10. Now you'll need to modify the protective cap so that you can pass the kit wiring through it and connect the wiring to the components inside the headlight.
    TRS recommends drilling a 7/8" hole in the cap, but I found that this was not big enough. I ended up using my box cutter to carefully cut away just enough rubber so that 1) the connectors on the end of the wiring could pass through and 2) the inner and outer seals on the wiring could rest flatly on the inside and outside of the cap without allowing anything from the outside to get in.
  11. Disconnect, rotate and remove the halogen bulb from the headlight, being careful not to touch it with bare fingers.
  12. Insert the HID bulb into the socket and rotate it until it locks. We are testing to make sure that it fits and remains in place snugly.
  13. Take the bulb back out and connect it to the end of the wiring that you have passed through the protective cap. Make sure to gently but firmly snap it into place.
  14. Now take one of the alcohol swabs and wipe down the HID bulb to ensure that it is free of contaminants and oils.
  15. Place the bulb back in the socket and lock it back into place again.
  16. Take the black and red wires that are also passed through the protective cap and firmly insert them into the connector that was previously hooked up to the halogen bulb. Your setup should now look like this (notice how the inner seal is flush with the protective cap):
    1oFsiw7.jpg
  17. Now connect a ballast igniter to one of the sets of wires (the black/white weave pattern ones in my kit) that is passed out of the protective cap.
  18. Connect the ballast igniter to a ballast.
  19. Connect the ballast to a standalone canbus.
  20. Now to complete the loop, connect the other end of the standalone canbus to the other set of wires (black/red weave pattern in my kit) that is passed out of the protective cap.
  21. Carefully tuck the halogen bulb connector and its wires inside the headlight assembly and put the protective cap back in place.
  22. Your set up should now look like this. Note that the piece of the canbus circled in red is extra and can be removed if you desire:
    27D5irj.jpg
  23. Now that you have everything hooked up, fire up the headlight and make sure that the HID bulb works as expected. Turn the headlights back off when you are done. Leave the kit laying on top of the engine bay for now.
  24. At this point you can repeat the previous steps for the other headlight. Be sure to test the bulb on that side as well.
  25. Rest the backs of both of the ballasts against the frame to help ground them, then run some final tests on the kit before securing everything in place.
  26. Turn the headlights on and off several times in a row and make sure that the bulbs fire up each time. Note that it is normal for them to appear slightly different in color when they first come on. Over time, as the salts in the bulbs "break in", the color should eventually match when firing up (they should always match once warmed up).
  27. Leave the lights on for a while and make sure that there is no flickering or loss of light.
  28. If you hear any buzzing or humming from either of the ballasts, this is normal. You will not be able to hear it when the hood is closed or when the engine is running.
  29. If everything checks out, you can slide/lock the headlights back in place and re-insert the two bolts used to secure them.
  30. Next you can secure the kit parts in your engine bay. I tucked all of the wiring down in the gaps behind the headlights and zip-tied the ballasts securely against the frame behind the headlights, as shown below.

    Driver's side:
    PtHxEfF.jpg

    Passenger's side:
    hGSQ1Ps.jpg
  31. Reattach your bumper by carefully pressing the locking tabs at each end of the bumper back into place. It will take a bit of firm force, but they should eventually go back into place.
  32. Put all of the bolts and fasteners back where you found them.
  33. Park your car behind another car at night with your lights on. Ensure that the top of the cutoff does not go up into the other car's side view mirrors. If it does, rotate the adjustment screw on the headlight assembly to lower the beam alignment.
  34. Enjoy your new HID headlights!!

The cutoff for HID bulbs in our halogen projectors is very good, and the beam spread is reasonable as well. After a couple of months of driving with the new headlights on at night, my wife has not been flashed by other drivers a single time. I have also driven toward her vehicle head-on and did not find the lights to be anywhere close to blinding. I am quite jealous and can't wait to do the upgrade on my car as well.

 

Here is a shot of the light output from my wife's car (ignore the left-to-right height unevenness; our driveway is at a slight angle):
Swvsn0w.jpg

 

I am already at my max photo limit for this post, so I will add some follow-up shots of the vehicle itself in a separate post.

 

Thanks for checking out my installation guide, and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. It's a great PNP kit; I highly recommend it as well as The Retrofit Source!

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  • 5 years later...

Quick Question for you, i just purchased a 2014 FFTI with the ugly halogen lights.  when you tested them did you have the engine running or was it off at the time?  I have heard that people had issues with them shutting down when the engine started due to the setup and the canbus network and flickering.  Did you have that or any flickering after startup?   Thank you for your time and looks like a great job on the steps involved.  Did you get your other half's car done?

Bob M

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On 4/15/2021 at 12:38 PM, puddlepirate1956 said:

Quick Question for you, i just purchased a 2014 FFTI with the ugly halogen lights.  when you tested them did you have the engine running or was it off at the time?  I have heard that people had issues with them shutting down when the engine started due to the setup and the canbus network and flickering.  Did you have that or any flickering after startup?   Thank you for your time and looks like a great job on the steps involved.  Did you get your other half's car done?

Bob M

 

Hi Bob,

 

I did the flicker testing with the engine running.  After startup, occasionally one of the bulbs would just shut off completely.  The new part did the trick.

 

Thanks for the kind words.  We actually sold my wife's vehicle shown here a couple of years ago, as we added twins to the family and needed something with a lot more room (Honda minivan).  But yes, I did this update on my black Fusion as well, but the light spread was not as clean.

 

I swapped the kit from her car back to halogen before we sold it, and I put her kit in my Fusion, keeping my original kit as a backup.  I also put in some cool white LED parking lights, and now my Fusion has a nice clean look from side to side across the headlights.  If only the fog lights looked that nice too...

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